Do you know your basic geography?

[Babablackship]

If presented with a map of Europe could you name the countries?

Just being curious as at a recent gathering many university and phd educated people couldn’t.

Just done the quiz and got 70% but I got off to a bad start as I thought it was multiple choice and the arrows were pointing to options so selected the first couple wrong. But then I realised the arrows were pointing to the tiny countries like Monaco.

I hadn't even heard of the first country, but it turns out that the Czech Republic is now called something else and as predicted it all went a bit wrong in Eastern Europe. I also confused Luxembourg and Liechenstein.

@SpuriouserAndSpuriouser yes!! Fab! I am hooked now.

I also like watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics for the parades and the flags.

Actually if you showed me a picture of quite a few european countries in isolation - i would struggle. I'd not lnow the shape of most of the eastern block ones. I can only work them out in relation to where they are on the map.

@Belindabelle are you me?!

Oh yes flags. In fairness in the olden days there was a lot more boredom and books helped overcome that. I too remember long aft or summers just dissecting maps, flags etc. I am sure if you’d have given me a phone or a 24 tv on demand my knowledge would not be so wide. Still... if you travel you should know where you are going and where you will be.

Yes we had maps all over the house when DC were growing up.I wasn't precious about decor. They knew where countries are and their capitals. If a country was mentioned anywhere we would head for the map and look at it.
Schools don't teach that sort of thing even in geography.
PeterRabbitsBlueCoat DS1 and DH are flag people. DS (23) knows every country, US states, UK counties (did you even know there was such a thing as a county flag?).

@Babablackship For me, certainly, the visual memory is key. I loved my globe as a kid and my dad travelled very widely for work so I got to hear about lots of countries, and was taught about the rest of Europe at school. I travel as much as I can now, but I'd probably struggle to point to all the places I've been on a map!

As a result, I see an interest in European/worldwide languages, cultures and history as being far more important than the geographical location of places - but then I would say that :)

I got over 80% on Sporcle. It was the Balkans that tripped me up too.

Oh, and for the geography geeks here - if you haven't already played Geoguessr I really recommend it!

It drops you somewhere in the world on Google Streetview and you have to guess where in the world you are by dropping a pin on a map.

There's lots of types of challenge but I do the daily challenge every day (you can move around like normal streetview), but you've got 3 minutes to guess.

Yes - learned it all in school (with much of the rest of the world added in games in the car with parents). But my kids can't. I'll try sporcle on them.

Did it again - 87%. 😁

South America only has 12 countries - much easier.

Jetpunk/sporcle fan here. Can fill the map of the world and I'm pretty good with flags as well.
It just interests me.

I probably couldn't to be fair but my DS can tell you all of them and the capitals, he can also name/locate all of the US states (recent thing) he can also identify flags of the world and even won us a trip doing that when he was about 9 or 10.

I'm rubbish at flags but ok at maps, as a child I found it interesting to read about what life was like in different countries.

I definitely didn't learn where countries were in school. To be honest I don't remember doing much in Geography apart from tourism and how it affects popular places, including a trip to a seaside town on the jurassic coast where we went round the car park with clipboards looking at the tax discs to record where people had come from. What was the point of that?

At primary school we had to learn all the countries, their capitals and major seas and rivers. I am 49

We were the same and I could do name most of them. But the bit that used to be Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and USSR poses me a bit of an issue now there are a gazillion smaller countries there instead.

I have recently discovered Sporcke and can get 100% on naming countries and capitals in Europe but I'm not so good at placing them.

Oops, I got 55% on that test.

I'd get most right, including the capitals. I'd get mixed up some of the Balkan states and I always forget the order of the Baltic states. I guess I'd manage to name all of them, place ~90% correctly and match ~90% with the correct capital.

Worldwide the rate would be a bit lower - I assume I'd manage to name 90% (would mostly have troubles with the small island states) place around 80% correctly and match maybe 60-70% with the correct capital. Problem areas here would be Central Asia.

Nope. I'm absolutely crap at plotting countries, and I have an A-Level in Geography too Human Geography was more my speciality, rather than physical.

Honestly? I think I could confidently do about 50% of Europe then I would struggle, I’m 24 and uni educated for context & went to a supposedly outstanding school.

My knowledge is a bit of a curate's egg - good in parts.

At primary school we had to learn all the countries, their capitals and major seas and rivers
I'm 58 and did geography o level - I don't think anywhere along the way we did that sort of thing. And even if we had, I still wouldn't have known the Balkan or Baltic states ... we have a globe which we bought in 1990, it's of more interest historically than geographically nowadays.

But there were atlases then and google maps now.

66% on Sporcle but some were guesses. Must try harder. I don't think we learned this at school at all. I do remember learning capitals of European countries but not where they were on a map or globe.

Ah, just saw the posted test now. I put Ukraine where Romania is, out of stupiduty (I actually know better ;)), the rest was correct.

I was always very curious about this sort of thing and spent lots of time looking at maps and the globe. I'm also reasonably well travelled. I think I'd get close to 100% on European countries and do well on most other continents too.

Do think most people are that bothered though. I find it fascinating how many people go to, say, Tenerife and have no concept of where they've physically been.